


The Kingdom Of Make-Believe

by vlredreign



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Angst, Canon, Drama, Episode Related, Gap Filler
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-29
Updated: 2008-11-29
Packaged: 2018-12-26 18:25:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12064545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vlredreign/pseuds/vlredreign
Summary: Sort of a gap-filler for 509.  Brian is contemplating his life at the moment, trying to figure out what went wrong.





	The Kingdom Of Make-Believe

**Author's Note:**

> Note from IrishCaelan, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Brian_Justin_Fanfiction_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in September 2017. I posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/bjfic/profile).

  
Author's notes: Thanks ever so to Xie, who patiently beta'd this, and cut out all the stuff crowding it out.  This is an older story, first posted in 2006.  


* * *

**"When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer." – Plutarch**

****

 

****_”You see that guy? That’s Brian Kinney. He used to be the hottest stud on Liberty Avenue. Now he’s in a **relationship."**_

It’s amazing how that simple observation sent you into a tailspin. You spent years perfecting that image.

Brian Kinney. Brian-fucking-Kinney, thank you very much.

The hottest, sexiest, most successful fag in Pittsburgh.

Liberty Avenue was your kingdom, Babylon your castle.

Your kingdom was made up of bright streets and rainbow colors. A place where everyone knew everyone else; where you could have your fortune told by an aging drag queen, or your present dissected by a non drag queen in t-shirts and buttons. Your subjects were plentiful, your conquests were many. Your kingdom was safe. You had lords of karma at your beck and call, ready with a cutting remark or a fawning request.

You even had a prince.

And then, seemingly overnight, everything changed.

The lights were turned on, and your shiny kingdom was revealed. It was cheap, tawdry, like an old whore out for one last trick before turning in, wig askew, makeup smeared, eyes glassy and bloodshot.

The same way you looked, sometimes.

You didn’t understand what went wrong.

All of the pieces fit, A into B, C screwed into D. You even figured out what the hell a gratchet was. Everything worked, like a well-oiled machine. You were wealthy, young, sought after.

Except you weren’t. At least, not like before.

Funny how the blonds in your life tended to pick you up and knock you down, often at the same time.

Lindsay offered you the chance to replicate yourself, so you took it. You thought it would be amusing to have a smaller version of yourself out there, another Kinney to piss off, and, perhaps, piss on, the world.

And then you looked at him, and thought that maybe it was a chance for redemption.

Justin threw down a gauntlet. Would you, could you, change everything that you were, everything that you said and did and believed, to be something, someone, that no one expected, and everyone thought was impossible?

Yes, you could. And no, you wouldn’t. You tried, and it kicked you in the balls.

But you tried again, because there was something about him that made you want to at least try.

Brandon threatened you. He showed up like mildew in a forgotten corner of a room, and, by the time the smell of decay reached you, you were too busy rebuilding your world - or destroying it - to see that you were losing it.

But, like a party guest who has stayed beyond the point of politeness, you refused to go quietly. You had to fight for your kingdom, without knowing if it was still yours. It just needed a makeover, was all. After all, everything old is new again. The torch must be passed. Was it your fault that you were absent the day they studied JFK?

Actually, it was Jack’s, but that’s another story.

Like a knee-jerk reaction, you reverted back to proven methods of battle – if it moves, fuck it into submission. So you did. And he did. And you won, and he was your prize. Your kingdom was restored, you were still the king. And then you realized something, something that made you stop, gave you pause.

When Brandon lay across your bed, you saw his blond head against your dark sheets and realized that, once again, it was the wrong blond. Wrong hair color, wrong body, wrong, wrong, wrong.

You began to wonder if there was someone with a script of your life. You wondered if perhaps they’d decided that, instead of writing you new lines, they’d just recycle old ones. You wondered if they thought you’d ever notice.

You did. And the knowledge hit you like an anvil. It wasn’t that Michael and the others were right. It wasn’t that the speech you’d given from up on high was untrue. It wasn’t even the fact that you had lost the people that mattered most to you.

It was the fact that the world had moved on, and you weren’t paying attention.

You’d always thought that there were two ways of doing things: your way, and your way. You thought that Michael would always be your friend, would always understand you, because to not believe it was unacceptable. You’d thought that Justin would accept whatever bone you tossed out to him, because he always had. Oh, he balked and complained from time to time, but ultimately, he’d concede.

But he’d grown up, the hard way, and you weren’t paying attention.

You told him things would be different. You asked him to move in, instead of just allowing him to stay. You expected him to understand the rules, when you hadn’t given him any. And then you resisted when he once again asked you for one thing. One simple thing. You thought that he’d learn to live with the disappointment. You had.

But he wasn’t you. He’d never settled for second best from you. You forgot that, sometimes. You thought that he wanted to put you into that box that Michael had shut himself away in. That box of tulip beds and white picket fences, of brown sack lunches and PTA meetings. Of early evenings and dull, boring monotony.

That wasn’t what he wanted. All he ever really wanted was you. From that first night, so long ago, he wanted you. The you that no one else knew, that no one else was allowed to know, not even Michael. He’d seen you with all of your faults, and he wanted you anyway. He just wanted to be first. He wanted to be the one that your eyes sought out on the dance floor. He wanted to be your first pick. He told you once that he wasn’t your back up plan, but you forgot that

You didn’t realize that most of the male population of Liberty Avenue knew that you and Justin were a couple, and that at least half of them wanted to _be_ Justin. You’d forgotten that look on his face when you pissed on his creation, and then fucked it. And you didn’t realize that that look had been on his face for months. Or you did, and simply ignored it.

When he left, he wasn’t angry or upset. He didn’t want to fight, or make you angry. He wanted _you_ to fight. Just once, he wanted you to fight for what he’d fought for. You. Him. You and him.

But that wasn’t part of your divide and conquer, wasn’t on your battle maps. And so, as usual, you handled it with a flippant remark and your tongue in your cheek.

And that night, in your royal chamber, your breath hitched; once, twice. The lump in your throat grew, the elephant on your chest sat down for the night. You’d never known pain quite like this. You thought you had, two years before. You were wrong. So fucking wrong that it boggled the imagination. Because this time, you couldn’t blame it on a traveling minstrel or opportunities in that far-off world of sparkling lights.

This time, it was you.

And so you stood, having defeated the usurper, but not the hourglass that he represented. You stood next to your prince as others praised his efforts, efforts that came to fruition in part because of you. You stood, trying to mend the fence of kinship with your best friend, only to find that part of what made the fence whole was missing, and possibly lost forever.

You stood on high, looking down upon your playground, where the lights shifted in perpetual movement, where the colors and the glitter rained down on the revelers at the bacchanal. Everything looked so beautiful from such a height.

Perspective is a funny thing.

As you watch the dance below, the music changes, or seems to. That tribal beat, that pulse that fuels your world, now sounds like a chant, like a low, sub aural hum, like an _om_ that vibrates through you, into you. Your eyes glaze over for a moment, and you see yourself as you once were, the king, the undisputed champion. You were surrounded by friends and sycophants alike, and one bright light seemed to follow you everywhere, like a shadow. You think that you were happy there, once.

You hear a voice and turn, but it’s not one that you expected. The owner of the voice reminds you of your prince; neither of them fall for your bullshit. Neither of them ever really have.

There is comfort in that thought.

The owner of the voice says that you look as though you could use a friend.

He has no idea of how much of one he has become. Of course, you won’t tell him.

You wouldn’t do that even if you weren’t Brian Kinney. But you are, and some things are just expected of you.

Just when you thought that your brain would begin to bleed from all of the angel/demon bullshit spinning around in it, color leeches back into the world, an explosion of light and sound seeming to bring order to the chaos. Strange that that should make an odd sort of sense to you. In what seems to be an automatic response, your feet lead you forward, down to the dance. Down under the shower of metallic rain, you feel…almost at home.

Almost. Something’s still missing, but you don’t want to think about that right now. Right now, they want you. And you want them. Maybe.

You wonder what it would take to become Brian Kinney again.

You wonder if it would take something like an act of God.


End file.
